Computer implemented methods and apparatus for recommending events

ABSTRACT

Disclosed are methods, apparatus, systems, and computer-readable storage media for recommending an event to a user. In some implementations, one or more servers receive information identifying a plurality of events. The one or more servers store data of the plurality of events in a first one or more data tables having an action field, an item field, and a user field, and analyze the data of the first one or more data tables to generate one or more pairs, each pair including information identifying a set of events and a target event. The one or more servers may calculate a similarity score for each of the one or more pairs and store the respective similarity score in a second one or more data table having a set field, a target event field, and a similarity score field.

PRIORITY DATA

This application is a continuation application of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 14/160,400 filed Jan. 21, 2014, which claimspriority to U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 61/754,896, filed Jan.21, 2013, which are both herein incorporated by reference in theirentireties.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material,which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has noobjection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent documentor the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and TrademarkOffice patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyrightrights whatsoever.

TECHNICAL FIELD

This patent document relates generally to providing services in anon-demand services environment using a database system and, morespecifically, to techniques for assisting users of the on-demandservices environment in performing tasks in the environment.

BACKGROUND

Organizations typically employ many different types of software andcomputing technologies to meet their computing needs. However,installing and maintaining software on an organization's own computersystems may involve one or more drawbacks. For example, when softwaremust be installed on computer systems within the organization, theinstallation process often requires significant time commitments, sinceorganization personnel may need to separately access each computer. Onceinstalled, the maintenance of such software typically requiressignificant additional resources. Each installation of the software mayneed to be separately monitored, upgraded, and/or maintained. Further,organization personnel may need to protect each installed piece ofsoftware against viruses and other malevolent code. Given thedifficulties in updating and maintaining software installed on manydifferent computer systems, it is common for software to becomeoutdated. Also, the organization will likely need to ensure that thevarious software programs installed on each computer system arecompatible. Compatibility problems are compounded by frequent upgrading,which may result in different versions of the same software being usedat different computer systems in the same organization.

According, organizations increasingly prefer to use on-demand servicesaccessible via the Internet rather software installed on in-housecomputer systems. On-demand services, often termed “cloud computing”services, take advantage of increased network speeds and decreasednetwork latency to provide shared resources, software, and informationto computers and other devices upon request. Cloud computing typicallyinvolves over-the-Internet provision of dynamically scalable and oftenvirtualized resources. Technological details can be abstracted from theusers, who no longer have need for expertise in, or control over, thetechnology infrastructure “in the cloud” that supports them.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The included drawings are for illustrative purposes and serve only toprovide examples of possible structures and operations for the disclosedinventive systems, apparatus, and methods for recommending an event to auser. These drawings in no way limit any changes in form and detail thatmay be made by one skilled in the art without departing from the spiritand scope of the disclosed implementations.

FIG. 1A shows a block diagram of an example of an environment 10 inwhich an on-demand database service can be used in accordance with someimplementations.

FIG. 1B shows a block diagram of an example of some implementations ofelements of FIG. 1A and various possible interconnections between theseelements.

FIG. 2A shows a system diagram illustrating an example of architecturalcomponents of an on-demand database service environment 200 according tosome implementations.

FIG. 2B shows a system diagram further illustrating an example ofarchitectural components of an on-demand database service environmentaccording to some implementations.

FIG. 3 shows a flowchart of an example of a method 300 for trackingupdates to a record stored in a database system, performed in accordancewith some implementations.

FIG. 4 shows a block diagram of an example of components of a databasesystem configuration 400 performing a method for tracking an update to arecord according to some implementations.

FIG. 5 shows a flowchart of an example of a method 500 for trackingactions of a user of a database system, performed in accordance withsome implementations.

FIG. 6 shows a flowchart of an example of a method 600 for creating anews feed from messages created by a user about a record or anotheruser, performed in accordance with some implementations.

FIG. 7 shows a flowchart of an example of a computer implemented method700 for recommending an event to a user, performed in accordance withsome implementations.

FIG. 8 shows a flowchart of an example of a computer implemented method800 for recommending an event to a user, performed in accordance withsome implementations.

FIGS. 9A, 9B, and 9C show flowcharts of examples of a computerimplemented method 980 for transmitting data to a computing device fordisplay, performed in accordance with some implementations.

FIG. 10A shows an example of a database table 1000 identifying eventsperformed by users of the system, according to some implementations.

FIG. 10B shows an example of a database table 1050 identifyingsimilarity scores for a set of events and a target event, according tosome implementations.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Examples of systems, apparatus, methods and computer-readable storagemedia according to the disclosed implementations are described in thissection. These examples are being provided solely to add context and aidin the understanding of the disclosed implementations. It will thus beapparent to one skilled in the art that implementations may be practicedwithout some or all of these specific details. In other instances,certain process/method operations also referred to herein as “blocks,”have not been described in detail in order to avoid unnecessarilyobscuring implementations. Other applications are possible, such thatthe following examples should not be taken as definitive or limitingeither in scope or setting.

In the following detailed description, references are made to theaccompanying drawings, which form a part of the description and in whichare shown, by way of illustration, specific implementations. Althoughthese implementations are described in sufficient detail to enable oneskilled in the art to practice the disclosed implementations, it isunderstood that these examples are not limiting, such that otherimplementations may be used and changes may be made without departingfrom their spirit and scope. For example, the blocks of methods shownand described herein are not necessarily performed in the orderindicated. It should also be understood that the methods may includemore or fewer blocks than are indicated. In some implementations, blocksdescribed herein as separate blocks may be combined. Conversely, whatmay be described herein as a single block may be implemented in multipleblocks.

Various implementations described or referenced herein are directed todifferent methods, apparatus, systems, and computer-readable storagemedia for recommending events to a user of an on-demand servicesenvironment, such as, for example, an online social network. Onlinesocial networks are increasingly becoming a common way to facilitatecommunication among people, any of whom can be recognized as users of asocial networking system. One example of an online social network isChatter®, provided by salesforce.com, inc. of San Francisco, Calif.salesforce.com, inc. is a provider of social networking services,customer relationship management (CRM) services and other databasemanagement services, any of which can be accessed and used inconjunction with the techniques disclosed herein in someimplementations. These various services can be provided in a cloudcomputing environment, for example, in the context of a multi-tenantdatabase system. Thus, the disclosed techniques can be implementedwithout having to install software locally, that is, on computingdevices of users interacting with services available through the cloud.While the disclosed implementations are often described with referenceto Chatter®, those skilled in the art should understand that thedisclosed techniques are neither limited to Chatter® nor to any otherservices and systems provides by salesforce.com, inc. and can beimplemented in the context of various other database systems and/orsocial networking systems such as Facebook®, LinkedIn®, Twitter®,Google+®, Yammer® and Jive® by way of example only.

Some online social networks can be implemented in various setting,including organizations. For instance, an online social network can beimplemented to connect users within an enterprise such as a company orbusiness partnership, or a group of users within such an organization.For instance, Chatter® can be used by employee users in a division of abusiness organization to share data, communicate, and collaborate witheach other for various social purposes often involving the business ofthe organization. In the example of a multi-tenant database system, eachorganization or group within the organization can be a respective tenantof the system, as described in greater detail below.

In some online social networks, users can access one or more informationfeeds, which include information updates presented as items or entriesin the feed. Such a feed item can include a single information update ora collection of individual information updates. A feed item can includevarious types of data including character-based data, audio data, imagedata and/or video data. An information feed can be displayed in agraphical user interface (GUI) on a display device such as the displayof a computing device as described below. The information updates caninclude various social network data from various sources and can bestored in an on-demand database service environment. In someimplementations, the disclosed methods, apparatus, systems, andcomputer-readable storage media may be configured or designed for use ina multi-tenant database environment.

In some implementations, and online social network may allow a user tofollow data objects in the form of records such as cases, accounts, oropportunities, in addition to following individual users and groups ofusers. The “following” of a record stored in a database, as described ingreater detail below, allows a user to track the progress of thatrecord. Updates to the record, also referred to herein as changes to therecord, are one type of information update that can occur and be notedon an information feed such as a record feed or a news feed of a usersubscribed to the record. Examples of record updates include fieldchanges in the record, updates to the status of a record, as well as thecreation of the record itself. Some records are publicly accessible,such that any user can follow the record, while other records areprivate, for which appropriate security clearance/permissions are aprerequisite to a user following the record.

Information updates can include various types of updates, which may ormay not be linked with a particular record. For example, informationupdates can be social media messages or can otherwise be generated inresponse to user actions or in response to events. Examples of socialmedia messages include: posts, comments, indications of a user'spersonal preferences such as “likes” and “dislikes”, updates to a user'sstatus, uploaded files, and user-submitted hyperlinks to social networkdata or other network data such as various documents and/or web pages onthe Internet. Posts can include alpha-numeric or other character-baseduser inputs such as words, phrases, statements, questions, emotionalexpressions, and/or symbols. Comments generally refer to responses toposts or to other information updates, such as words, phrases,statements, answers, questions, and reactionary emotional expressionsand/or symbols. Multimedia data can be included in, linked with, orattached to a post or comment. For example, a post can include textualstatements in combination with a JPEG image or animated image. A like ordislike can be submitted in response to a particular post or comment.Examples of uploaded files include presentations, documents, multimediafiles, and the like.

Various implementations described or referenced herein are directed todifferent methods, apparatus, systems, and computer-readable storagemedia for recommending an event to a user. For instance, some of thedisclosed systems may generate and provide recommendations to a userregarding a search, a product, an event, etc. Some examples of disclosedrecommendation engines are configured to predict what a user will wantto do based on the prior actions of other users and to recommend anaction to the user based on the prediction. For example, a user of anonline social network may decide to follow a user (User 1) and join agroup (Group A). The system may then recommend to the user a subsequentaction that other users who have followed User 1 and joined Group A haveperformed. For example, users who have followed User 1 and joined GroupA may also be interested in a particular topic and have followed TopicB. The system may then recommend following Topic B to the user.

Collaborative filtering (CF) generally refers to a process of filteringfor information or patterns using techniques involving collaborationamong multiple agents, viewpoints, data sources and so forth. Some ofthe disclosed implementations utilize collaborative filtering methods togenerate recommendations about workflow events of a system user bycollecting events executed by many users and providing “recommendations”to system users performing their workflows. For example, in such amodel, it can be assumed that where user A performs task 3 afterperforming tasks 1 and 2, user B, who has performed tasks 1 and 2, ismore likely to perform task 3 than if user A had not performed task 3after performing tasks 1 and 2. In some implementations, tasks ofdifferent types may be tracked and used to provide task recommendationsto a user. Rather than just using whether someone has bought a book todetermine what book they should buy next, some of the disclosedimplementations allow us to use information like what groups a user hasjoined, what links the user has clicked on, what users the user hasfollowed, to generate a recommendation as to what to do next. Therecommended action may or may not be of the same type as the previouslyperformed actions that led to the recommendation. For example, in theabove example, the recommended action may be a view a particular filethat other user who have joined the same group, clicked the same link,and followed the user, have also viewed.

Some of the disclosed implementations allow a system to recommend anaction to a user performing a series of actions in an online environmentbased on various types of actions that users perform in their workflows.For example, the system can determine what action to recommend to theuser by aggregating actions performed by all or a subset of other usersof the online environment, and by using collaborative filtering methodsto identify, given a set of actions that are performed by a user, one ormore target actions that are performed more frequently along with thegiven set of actions. The system may do this by examining acollaborative filter table in which sets of events and target events arepaired up and a collaborative filtering similarity score is determinedfor the pairs. A higher similarity score for a pair of a set of eventsand a target event signifies that the target event is performedrelatively more frequently along with the set of events than otherevents that have a lower similarity score.

Based on the similarity scores generated by the collaborative filteringmethods, subsequent events may be suggested and recommended to usersbased on the series of events in their workflow. While some conventionalrecommendation engines use one type of actions (e.g., buying books) torecommend other items to a user performing the action (e.g. recommendingbuying book B to a user who is buying book A), some of the disclosedimplementations use multiple action types when performing collaborativefiltering. For instance, in the example above, multiple action types,such as joining a group and following a user, are used. The system mayevaluate data about different actions performed by a corpus of users todetermining the relationship between different actions, e.g., joining agroup and following a user. Any number of action types may be used inthe disclosed implementations to determine a recommendation of an actionfor a user. Using multiple action types to provide the recommendationsallows for better recommendations because some actions that havedifferent action types can be closely related, i.e. users who perform aparticular action of an action type may be likely to perform anotheraction having a different action type.

In some of the disclosed implementations, the recommended action may bepresented to the user in various ways. Items in the user interface maybe positioned and repositioned such that more highly recommended actionsare located in area of the user interface that are more prominent to theuser. For example, in a list of links, the link corresponding to therecommended action may be moved to the top of the list of actions. Tabsin the user interfaces may also be arranged and rearranged based onwhich events are recommended by the system.

These and other implementations may be embodied in various types ofhardware, software, firmware, and combinations thereof. For example,some techniques disclosed herein may be implemented, at least in part,by computer-readable media that include program instructions, stateinformation, etc., for performing various services and operationsdescribed herein. Examples of program instructions include both machinecode, such as produced by a compiler, and files containing higher-levelcode that may be executed by a computing device such as a server orother data processing apparatus using an interpreter. Examples ofcomputer-readable media include, but are not limited to, magnetic mediasuch as hard disks, floppy disks, and magnetic tape; optical media suchas CD-ROM disks; magneto-optical media; and hardware devices that arespecially configured to store program instructions, such as read-onlymemory (“ROM”) devices and random access memory (“RAM”) devices. Theseand other features of the disclosed implementations will be described inmore detail below with reference to the associated drawings.

The term “multi-tenant database system” can refer to those systems inwhich various elements of hardware and software of a database system maybe shared by one or more customers. For example, a given applicationserver may simultaneously process requests for a great number ofcustomers, and a given database table may store rows of data such asfeed items for a potentially much greater number of customers. The term“query plan” generally refers to one or more operations used to accessinformation in a database system.

A “user profile” or “user's profile” is generally configured to storeand maintain data about a given user of the database system. The datacan include general information, such as name, title, phone number, aphoto, a biographical summary, and a status, e.g., text describing whatthe user is currently doing. As mentioned blow, the data can includemessages created by other users. Where there are multiple tenants, auser is typically associated with a particular tenant. For example, auser could be a salesperson of a company, which is a tenant of thedatabase system that provides a database service.

The term “record” generally refers to a data entity, such as an instanceof a data object created by a user of the database service, for example,about a particular (actual or potential) business relationship orproject. The data object can have a data structure defined by thedatabase service (a standard object) or defined by a user (customobject). For example, a record can be for a business partner orpotential business partner (e.g., a client, vendor, distributor, etc.)of the user, and can include information describing an entire company,subsidiaries, or contacts at the company. As another example, a recordcan be a project that the user is working on, such as an opportunity(e.g., a possible sale) with an existing partner, or a project that theuser is trying to get. In one implementation of a multi-tenant databasesystem, each record for the tenants has a unique identifier stored in acommon table. A record has data fields that are defined by the structureof the object (e.g., fields of certain data types and purposes). Arecord can also have custom fields defined by a user. A field can beanother record or include links thereto, thereby providing aparent-child relationship between the records.

The terms “information feed” and “feed” are used interchangeably hereinand generally refer to a combination (e.g., a list) of feed items orentries with various types of information and data. Such feed items canbe stored and maintained in one or more database tables, e.g., as rowsin the table(s), that can be accessed to retrieve relevant informationto be presented as part of a displayed feed. The term “feed item” (orfeed element) refers to an item of information, which can be presentedin the feed such as a post submitted by a user. Feed items ofinformation about a user can be presented in a user's profile feed ofthe database, while feed items of information about a record can bepresented in a record feed in the database, by way of example. A profilefeed and a record feed are examples of different information feeds. Asecond user following a first user and a record can receive the feeditems associated with the first user and the record for display in thesecond user's news feed, which is another type of information feed. Insome implementations, the feed items from any number of followed usersand records can be combined into a single information feed of aparticular user.

As examples, a feed item can be a social media message, such asuser-generated post of text data, and a feed track update to a record orprofile, such as a change to a field of the record. Feed tracked updatesare described in greater detail below. A feed can be a combination ofmessages and feed tracked updates. Messages include text created by auser, and may include other data as well. Examples of messages includeposts, user status updates, and comments. Messages can be created for auser's profile or for a record. Posts can be created by various users,potentially any user, although some restrictions can be applied. As anexample, posts can be made to a wall section of a user's profile page(which can include a number of recent posts) or a section of a recordthat includes multiple posts. The posts can be organized inchronological order when displayed in a graphical user interface (GUI),for instance, on the user's profile page, as part of the user's profilefeed. In contrast to a post, a user status update changes a status of auser and can be made by that user or an administrator. A record can alsohave a status, the update of which can be provided by an owner of therecord or other users having suitable write access permissions to therecord. The owner can be a single user, multiple users, or a group. Inone implementation, there is only one status for a record.

In some implementations, a comment can be made on any feed item. In someimplementations, comments are organized as a list explicitly tied to aparticular feed tracked update, post, or status update. In someimplementations, comments may not be listed in the first layer (in ahierarchal sense) of feed items, but listed as a second layer branchingfrom a particular first layer feed item.

A “feed tracked update,” also referred to herein as a “feed update,” isone type of information update and generally refers to data representingan event. A feed tracked update can include text generated by thedatabase system in response to the event, to be provided as one or morefeed items for possible inclusion in one or more feeds. In oneimplementation, the data can initially be stored, and then the databasesystem can later use the data to create text for describing the event.Both the data and/or the text can be a feed tracked update, as usedherein. In various implementations, an event can be an update of arecord and/or can be triggered by a specific action by a user. Whichactions trigger an event can be configurable. Which events have feedtracked updates created and which feed updates are sent to which userscan also be configurable. Messages and feed updates can be stored as afield or child object of the record. For example, the feed can be storedas a child object of the record.

A “group” is generally a collection of users. In some implementations,the group may be defined as users with a same or similar attribute, orby membership. In some implementations, a “group feed”, also referred toherein as a “group news feed”, includes one or more feed items about anyuser in the group. In some implementations, the group feed also includesinformation updates and other feed items that are about the group as awhole, the group's purpose, the group's description, and group recordsand other objects stored in association with the group. Threads ofinformation updates including group record updates and messages, such asposts, comments, likes, etc., can define group conversations and changeover time.

An “entity feed” or “record feed” generally refers to a feed of feeditems about a particular record in the database, such as feed trackedupdates about changes to the record and posts made by users about therecord. An entity feed can be composed of any type of feed item. Such afeed can be displayed on a page such as a web page associated with therecord, e.g., a home page of the record. As used herein, a “profilefeed” or “user's profile feed” is a feed of feed items about aparticular user. In one example, the feed items for a profile feedinclude posts and comments that other users make about or send to theparticular user, and status updates made by the particular user. Such aprofile feed can be displayed on a page associated with the particularuser. In another example, feed items in a profile feed could includeposts made by the particular user and feed tracked updates initiatedbased on actions of the particular user.

I. General Overview

Systems, apparatus, and methods are provided form implementingenterprise level social and business information networking. Suchimplementations can provide more efficient use of a database system. Forinstance, a user of a database system may not easily know when importantinformation in the database has changed, e.g., about a project orclient. Implementations can provide feed tracked updates about suchchanges and other events, thereby keeping users informed.

By way of example, a user can update a record in the form of a CRMobject, e.g., an opportunity such as a possible sale of 1000 computers.Once the record update has been made, a feed tracked update about therecord update can then automatically be provided, e.g., in a feed, toanyone subscribing to the opportunity or to the user. Thus, the userdoes not need to contact a manager regarding the change in theopportunity, since the feed tracked update about the update is sent viaa feed right to the manager's feed page or other page.

Next, mechanisms and methods for providing systems implementingenterprise level social and business information networking will bedescribed with reference to several implementations. First, an overviewof an example of a database system is described, and then examples oftracking events for a record, actions of a user, and messages about auser or record are described. Various implementations about the datastructure of feeds, customizing feeds, user selection of records andusers to follow, generating feeds, and displaying feeds are alsodescribed.

II. System Overview

FIG. 1A shows a block diagram of an example of an environment 10 inwhich an on-demand database service can be used in accordance with someimplementations. Environment 10 may include user systems 12, network 14,database system 16, processor system 17, application platform 18,network interface 20, tenant data storage 22, system data storage 24,program code 26, and process space 28. In other implementations,environment 10 may not have all of these components and/or may haveother components instead of, or in addition to, those listed above.

Environment 10 is an environment in which an on-demand database serviceexists. User system 12 may be implemented as any computing device(s) orother data processing apparatus such as a machine or system that is usedby a user to access a database system 16. For example, any of usersystems 12 can be a handheld computing device, a mobile phone, a laptopcomputer, a work station, and/or a network of such computing devices. Asillustrated in FIG. 1A (and in more detail in FIG. 1B) user systems 12might interact via a network 14 with an on-demand database service,which is implemented in the example of FIG. 1A as database system 16.

An on-demand database service, implemented using system 16 by way ofexample, is a service that is made available to outside users, who donot need to necessarily be concerned with building and/or maintainingthe database system. Instead, the database system may be available fortheir use when the users need the database system, i.e., on the demandof the users. Some on-demand database services may store informationfrom one or more tenants into tables of a common database image to forma multi-tenant database system (MTS). A database image may include oneor more database objects. A relational database management system(RDBMS) or the equivalent may execute storage and retrieval ofinformation against the database object(s). Application platform 18 maybe a framework that allows the applications of system 16 to run, such asthe hardware and/or software, e.g., the operating system. In someimplementations, application platform 18 enables creation, managing andexecuting one or more applications developed by the provider of theon-demand database service, users accessing the on-demand databaseservice via user systems 12, or third party application developersaccessing the on-demand database service via user systems 12.

The users of user systems 12 may differ in their respective capacities,and the capacity of a particular user system 12 might be entirelydetermined by permissions (permission levels) for the current user. Forexample, where a salesperson is using a particular user system 12 tointeract with system 16, that user system has the capacities allotted tothat salesperson. However, while an administrator is using that usersystem to interact with system 16, that user system has the capacitiesallotted to that administrator. In systems with a hierarchical rolemodel, users at one permission level may have access to applications,data, and database information accessible by a lower permission leveluser, but may not have access to certain applications, databaseinformation, and data accessible by a user at a higher permission level.Thus, different users will have different capabilities with regard toaccessing and modifying application and database information, dependingon a user's security or permission level, also called authorization.

Network 14 is any network or combination of networks of devices thatcommunicate with one another. For example, network 14 can be any one orany combination of a LAN (local area network), WAN (wide area network),telephone network, wireless network, point-to-point network, starnetwork, token ring network, hub network, or other appropriateconfiguration. Network 14 can include a TCP/IP (Transfer ControlProtocol and Internet Protocol) network, such as the global internetworkof networks often referred to as the “Internet” with a capital “I.” TheInternet will be used in many of the examples herein. However, it shouldbe understood that the networks that the present implementations mightuse are not so limited, although TCP/IP is a frequently implementedprotocol.

User systems 12 might communicate with system 16 using TCP/IP and, at ahigher network level, use other common Internet protocols tocommunicate, such as HTTP, FTP, AFS, WAP, etc. In an example where HTTPis used, user system 12 might include an HTTP client commonly referredto as a “browser” for sending and receiving HTTP signals to and from anHTTP server at system 16. Such an HTTP server might be implemented asthe sole network interface 20 between system 16 and network 14, butother techniques might be used as well or instead. In someimplementations, the network interface 20 between system 16 and network14 includes load sharing functionality, such as round-robin HTTP requestdistributors to balance loads and distribute incoming HTTP requestsevenly over a plurality of servers. At least for users accessing system16, each of the plurality of servers has access to the MTS' data;however, other alternative configurations may be used instead.

In one implementation, system 16, shown in FIG. 1A, implements aweb-based customer relationship management (CRM) system. For example, inone implementation, system 16 includes application servers configured toimplement and execute CRM software applications as well as providerelated data, code, forms, web pages and other information to and fromuser system 12 and to store to, and retrieve from, a database systemrelated data, objects, and Webpage content. With a multi-tenant system,data for multiple tenants may be stored in the same physical databaseobject in tenant data storage 22, however, tenant data typically isarranged in the storage medium(s) of tenant data storage 22 so that dataof one tenant is kept logically separate from that of other tenants sothat one tenant does not have access to another tenant's data, unlesssuch data is expressly shared. In certain implementations, system 16implements applications other than, or in addition to, a CRMapplication. For example, system 16 may provide tenant access tomultiple hosted (standard and custom) applications, including a CRMapplications. User (or third party developer) applications, which may ormay not include CRM, may be supported by the application platform 18,which manages creation, storage of the applications into one or moredatabase objects and executing of the applications in a virtual machinein the process space of the system 16.

One arrangement for elements of system 16 is shown in FIGS. 1A and 1B,including a network interface 20, application platform 18, tenant datastorage 22 for tenant 23, system data storage 24 for system 25accessible to system 16 and possibly multiple tenants, program code 26for implementing various functions of system 16, and a process space 28for executing MTS system processes and tenant-specific processes, suchas running applications as part of an application hosting service.Additional processes that may execute on system 16 include databaseindexing processes.

Several elements in the system shown in FIG. 1A include conventional,well-known elements that are explained only briefly here. For example,each user system 12 could include a desktop personal computer,workstation, laptop, PDA, cell phone, or any wireless access protocol(WAP) enabled device or any other computing device capable ofinterfacing directly or indirectly to the Internet or other networkconnection. The term “computing device” is also referred to hereinsimply as a “computer”. User system 12 typically runs an HTTP client,e.g., a browsing program, such as Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser,Netscape's Navigator browser, Opera's browser, or a WAP-enabled browserin the case of a cell phone, PDA or other wireless device, or the like,allowing a user (e.g., subscriber of the multi-tenant database system)of user system 12 to access, process and view information, pages andapplications available to it from system 16 over network 14. Each usersystem 12 also typically includes one or more user input devices, suchas a keyboard, a mouse, trackball, touch pad, touch screen, pen or thelike, for interacting with a graphical user interface (GUI) provided bythe browser on a display (e.g., a monitor screen, LCD display, etc.) ofthe computing device in conjunction with pages, forms, applications andother information provided by system 16 or other systems or servers. Forexample, the user interface device can be used to access data andapplications hosted by system 16, and to perform searches on storeddata, and otherwise allow a user to interact with various GUI pages thatmay be presented to a user. As discussed above, implementations aresuitable for use with the Internet, although other networks can be usedinstead of or in addition to the Internet, such as an intranet, anextranet, a virtual private network (VPN), and non-TCP/IP based network,and LAN or WAN or the like.

According to one implementation, each user system 12 and all of itscomponents are operator configurable using applications, such as abrowser, including computer code run using a central processing unitsuch as an Intel Pentium® processor or the like. Similarly, system 16(and additional instances of an MTS, where more than one is present) andall of its components might be operator configurable usingapplication(s) including computer code to run using processor system 17,which may be implemented to include a central processing unit, which mayinclude and Intel Pentium® processor or the like, and/or multipleprocessor units. Non-transitory computer-readable media can haveinstructions stored thereon/in, that can be executed by or used toprogram a computing device to perform any of the methods of theimplementations described here. Computer program code 26 implementinginstructions for operating and configuring system 16 to intercommunicateand to process web pages, applications and other data and media contentas described herein is preferably downloadable and stored on a harddisk, but the entire program code, or portions thereof, may also bestored in any other volatile or non-volatile memory medium or device asis well known, such as a ROM or RAM, or provided on any media capable ofstoring program code, such as any type of rotating media includingfloppy disks, optical discs, digital versatile disk (DVD), compact disk(CD), microdrive, and magneto-optical disks, and magnetic or opticalcards, nanosystems (including molecular memory ICs), or any other typeof computer-readable medium or device suitable for storing instructionsand/or data. Additionally, the entire program code, or portions thereof,may be transmitted and downloaded from a software source over atransmission medium, e.g., over the Internet, or from another server, asis well known, or transmitted over any other conventional networkconnection as is well known (e.g., extranet, VPN, LAN, etc.) using anycommunication medium and protocols (e.g., TCP/IP, HTTP, HTTPS, Ethernet,etc.) as are well known. It will also be appreciated that computer codefor the disclosed implementations can be realized in any programminglanguage that can be executed on a client system and/or server or serversystem such as, for example, C, C++, HTML, any other markup language,Java™, JavaScript, ActiveX, any other scripting language, such asVBScript, and many other programming languages as are well known may beused. (Java™ is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc.).

According to some implementations, each system 16 is configured toprovide web pages, forms, applications, data and media content to user(client) systems 12 to support the access by user systems 12 as tenantsof system 16. As such, system 16 provides security mechanisms to keepeach tenant's data separate unless the data is shared. If more than oneMTS is used, they may be located in close proximity to one another(e.g., in a server farm located in a single building or campus), or theymay be distributed at locations remote from one another (e.g., one ormore servers located in city A and one or more servers located in cityB). As used herein, each MTS could include one or more logically and/orphysically connected servers distributed locally or across one or moregeographic locations. Additionally, the term “server” is meant to referto a computing device or system, including processing hardware andprocess space(s), an associated storage medium such as a memory deviceor database, and, in some instances, a database application (e.g.,OODBMS or RDBMS) as is well known in the art. It should also beunderstood that “server system” and “server” are often usedinterchangeably herein. Similarly, the database objects described hereincan be implemented as single databases, a distributed database, acollection of distributed databases, a database with redundant online oroffline backups or other redundancies, etc., and might include adistributed database or storage network and associated processingintelligence.

FIG. 1B shows a block diagram of an example of some implementations ofelements of FIG. 1A and various possible interconnections between theseelements. That is, FIG. 1B also illustrates environment 10. However, inFIG. 1B elements of system 16 and various interconnections in someimplementations are further illustrated. FIG. 1B shows that user system12 may include processor system 12A, memory system 12B, input system12C, and output system 12D. FIG. 1B shows network 14 and system 16. FIG.1B also shows that system 16 may include tenant data storage 22, tenantdata 23, system data storage 24, system data 25, User Interface (UI) 30,Application Program Interface (API) 32, PL/SOQL 34, save routines 36,application setup mechanism 38, applications server 100I-100N, systemprocess space 102, tenant process spaces 104, tenant management processspace 110, tenant storage space 112, user storage 114, and applicationmetadata 116. In other implementations, environment 10 may not have thesame elements as those listed above and/or may have other elementsinstead of, or in addition to, those listed above.

User system 12, network 14, system 16, tenant data storage 22, andsystem data storage 24 were discussed above in FIG. 1A. Regarding usersystem 12, processor system 12A may be any combination of one or moreprocessors. Memory system 12B may be any combination of one or morememory devices, short term, and/or long term memory. Input system 12Cmay be any combination of input devices, such as one or more keyboards,mice, trackballs, scanners, cameras, and/or interfaces to networks.Output system 12D may be any combination of output devices, such as oneor more monitors, printers, and/or interfaces to networks. As shown byFIG. 1B, system 16 may include a network interface 20 (of FIG. 1A)implemented as a set of HTTP application servers 100, an applicationplatform 18, tenant data storage 22, and system data storage 24. Alsoshown is system process space 102, including individual tenant processspaces 104 and a tenant management process space 110. Each applicationserver 100 may be configured to communicate with tenant data storage 22and the tenant data 23 therein, and system data storage 24 and thesystem data 25 therein to serve requests of user systems 12. The tenantdata 23 might be divided into individual tenant storage spaces 112,which can be either a physical arrangement and/or a logical arrangementof data. Within each tenant storage space 112, user storage 114 andapplication metadata 116 might be similarly allocated for each user. Forexample, a copy of a user's most recently used (MRU) items might bestored to user storage 114. Similarly, a copy of MRU items for an entireorganization that is a tenant might be stored to tenant storage space112. A UI 30 provides a user interface and an API 32 provides anapplication programmer interface to system 16 resident processes tousers and/or developers at user systems 12. The tenant data and thesystem data may be stored in various databases, such as one or moreOracle databases.

Application platform 18 includes an application setup mechanism 38 thatsupports application developers' creation and management ofapplications, which may be saved as metadata into tenant data storage 22by save routines 36 for execution by subscribers as one or more tenantprocess spaces 104 managed by tenant management process 110 for example.Invocations to such applications may be coded using PL/SOQL 34 thatprovides a programming language style interface extension to API 32. Adetailed description of some PL/SOQL language implementations isdiscussed in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 7,730,478, title METHOD ANDSYSTEM FOR ALLOWING ACCESS TO DEVELOPED APPLICATIONS VIA A MULTI-TENANTON-DEMAND DATABASE SERVICE, by Craig Weissman, issued on Jun. 1, 2010,and hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety and for allpurposes. Invocations to applications may be detected by one or moresystem processes, which manage retrieving application metadata 116 forthe subscriber making the invocation and executing the metadata as anapplication in a virtual machine.

Each application server 100 may be communicably coupled to databasesystems, e.g., having access to system data 25 and tenant data 23, via adifferent network connection. For example, one application server 1001might be couple via the network 14 (e.g., the Internet), anotherapplication server 100N-1 might be coupled via a direct network link,and another application server 100N might be coupled by yet a differentnetwork connection. Transfer Control Protocol and Internet Protocol(TCP/IP) are typical protocols for communicating between applicationservers 100 and the database system. However, it will be apparent to oneskilled in the art that other transport protocols may be used tooptimize the system depending on the network interconnect used.

In certain implementations, each application server 100 is configured tohandle requests for any user associated with any organization that is atenant. Because it is desirable to be able to add and remove applicationservers from the server pool at any time for any reason, there ispreferably no server affinity for a user and/or organization to aspecific application server 100. In one implementation, therefore, aninterface system implementing a load balancing function (e.g., an F5Big-IP load balancer) is communicably coupled between the applicationservers 100 and the user systems 12 to distribute requests to theapplication servers 100. In one implementation, the load balancer used aleast connections algorithm to route user requests to the applicationservers 100. Other examples of load balancing algorithms, such as roundrobin and observed response time, also can be used. For example, incertain implementations, three consecutive requests from the same usercould hit three different application servers 100, and three requestsfrom different users could hit the same application server 100. In thismanner, by way of example, system 16 is multi-tenant, wherein system 16handles storage of, and access to, different objects, data andapplications across disparate users and organizations.

As an example of storage, one tenant might be a company that employs asales force where each salesperson uses system 16 to manage their salesprocess. Thus, a user might maintain contact data, leads data, customerfollow-up data, performance data, goals and progress data, etc., allapplicable to that user's personal sales process (e.g., in tenant datastorage 22). In an example of a MTS arrangement, since all of the dataand the applications to access, view, modify, report, transmit,calculate, etc., can be maintained and accessed by a user system havingnothing more than network access, the user can manage his or her salesefforts and cycles from any of many different user systems. For example,if a salesperson is visiting a customer and the customer has Internetaccess in their lobby, the salesperson can obtain critical updates as tothat customer while waiting for the customer to arrive in the lobby.

While each user's data might be separate from other users' dataregardless of the employers of each user, some data might beorganization-wide data shared or accessible by a plurality of users orall of the users for a given organization that is a tenant. Thus, theremight be some data structures managed by system 16 that are allocated atthe tenant level while other data structures might be managed at theuser level. Because an MTS might support multiple tenants includingpossible competitors, the MTS should have security protocols that keepdata, applications, and application use separate. Also, because manytenants may opt for access to an MTS rather than maintain their ownsystem, redundancy, up-time and backup are additional functions that maybe implemented in the MTS. In addition to user-specific data andtenant-specific data, system 16 might also maintain system level datausable by multiple tenants or other data. Such system level data mightinclude industry reports, news, postings, and the like that are sharableamong tenants.

In certain implementations, user systems 12 (which may be clientsystems) communicate with application servers 100 to request and updatesystem-level and tenant-level data from system 16 that may involvesending one or more queries to tenant data storage 22 and/or system datastorage 24. System 16 (e.g., and application server 100 in system 16)automatically generates one or more SQL statements (e.g., one or moreSQL queries) that are designed to access the desired information. Systemdata storage 24 may generate query plans to access the requested datafrom the database.

Each database can generally be viewed as a collection of objects, suchas a set of logical tables, containing data fitted into predefinedcategories. A “table” is one representation of a data object, and may beused herein to simplify the conceptual description of objects and customobjects according to some implementations. It should be understood that“table” and “object” may be used interchangeably herein. Each tablegenerally contains one or more data categories logically arranged ascolumns or fields in a viewable schema. Each row or record of a tablecontains an instance of data for each category defined by the fields.For example, a CRM database may include a table that describes acustomer with fields for basic contact information such as name,address, phone number, fax number, etc. Another table might describe apurchase order, including fields for information such as customer,product, sale price, date, etc. In some multi-tenant database systems,standard entity table might be provided for use by all tenants. For CRMdatabase applications, such standard entities might include tables forcase, account, contact, lead, and opportunity data objects, eachcontaining pre-defined fields. It should be understood that the word“entity” may also be used interchangeably herein with “object” and“table”.

In some multi-tenant database systems, tenants may be allowed to createand store custom objects, or they may be allowed to customize standardentities or objects, for example by creating custom fields for standardobjects, including custom index fields. Commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No.7,779,039, titled CUSTOM ENTITIES AND FIELD IN A MULTI-TENANT DATABASESYSTEM, by Weissman et al., issued on Aug. 17, 2010, and herebyincorporated by reference in it entirety and for all purposes, teachessystems and methods for creating custom objects as well as customizingstandard objects in a multi-tenant database system. In certainimplementations, for example, all custom entity data rows are stored ina single multi-tenant physical table, which may contain multiple logicaltables per organization. It is transparent to customers that theirmultiple “tables” are in fact stored in one large table or that theirdata may be stored in the same table as the data of other customers.

FIG. 2A shows a system diagram illustrating an example of architecturalcomponents of an on-demand database service environment 200 according tosome implementations. A client machine located in the cloud 204,generally referring to one or more networks in combination, as describedherein, may communicate with the on-demand database service environmentvia one or more edge routers 208 and 212. A client machine can be any ofthe examples of user systems 12 described above. The edge routers maycommunicate with one or more core switches 220 and 224 via firewall 216.The core switches may communicate with a load balancer 228, which maydistribute server load over different pods, such as the pods 240 and244. The pods 240 and 224, which may each include one or more serversand/or other computing resources, may perform data processing and otheroperations used to provide on-demand services. Communication with thepods may be conducted via pod switches 232 and 236. Components of theon-demand database service environment may communicate with a databasestorage 256 via a database firewall 248 and a database switch 252.

As shown in FIGS. 2A and 2B, accessing an on-demand database serviceenvironment may involve communications transmitted among a variety ofdifferent hardware and/or software components. Further, the on-demanddatabase service environment 200 is a simplified representation of anactual on-demand database service environment. For example, while onlyone or two devices of each type are shown in FIGS. 2A and 2B, someimplementations of an on-demand database service environment may includeanywhere from one to many devices of each type. Also, the on-demanddatabase service environment need not include each device shown in FIGS.2A and 2B, or may include additional devices not shown in FIGS. 2A and2B.

Moreover, one or more of the devices in the on-demand database serviceenvironment 200 may be implemented on the same physical device or ondifferent hardware. Some devices may be implemented using hardware or acombination of hardware and software. Thus, terms such as “dataprocessing apparatus,” “machine,” “server” and “device” as used hereinare not limited to a single hardware device, but rather include anyhardware and software configured to provide the described functionality.

The cloud 204 is intended to refer to a data network or plurality ofdata networks, often including the Internet. Client machines located inthe cloud 204 may communicate with the on-demand database serviceenvironment to access services provided by the on-demand databaseservice environment to retrieve, store, edit, and/or processinformation.

In some implementations, the edge routers 208 and 212 route packetsbetween the cloud 204 and other components of the on-demand databaseservice environment 200. The edge routers 208 and 212 may employ theBorder Gateway Protocol (BGP). The BGP is the core routing protocol ofthe Internet. The edge routers 208 and 212 may maintain a table of IPnetworks or ‘prefixes’, which designate network reachability amongautonomous systems on the Internet.

In one or more implementations, the firewall 216 may protect the innercomponents of the on-demand database service environment 200 fromInternet traffic. The firewall 216 may block, permit, or deny access tothe inner components of the on-demand database service environment 200based upon a set of rules and other criteria. The firewall 216 may actas one or more of a packet filter, an application gateway, a statefulfilter, a proxy server, or any other type of firewall.

In some implementations, the core switches 220 and 224 are high-capacityswitches that transfer packets within the on-demand database serviceenvironment 200. The core switches 220 and 224 may be configured asnetwork bridges that quickly route data between different componentswithin the on-demand database service environment. In someimplementations, the use of two or more core switches 220 and 224 mayprovide redundancy and/or reduced latency.

In some implementations, the pods 240 and 244 may perform the core dataprocessing and service functions provided by the on-demand databaseservice environment. Each pod may include various types of hardwareand/or software computing resources. An example of the pod architectureis discussed in greater detail with reference to FIG. 2B.

In some implementations, communication between the pods 240 and 244 maybe conducted via the pod switches 232 and 236. The pod switches 232 and236 may facilitate communication between the pods 240 and 244 and clientmachines located in the cloud 204, for example via core switches 220 and224. Also, the pod switches 232 and 236 may facilitate communicationbetween the pods 240 and 244 and the database storage 256.

In some implementations, the load balancer 228 may distribute workloadbetween the pods 240 and 244. Balancing the on-demand service requestsbetween the pods may assist in improving the use of resources,increasing throughput, reducing response times, and/or reducingoverhead. The load balancer 228 may include multilayer switches toanalyze and forward traffic.

In some implementations, access to the database storage 256 may beguarded by a database firewall 248. The database firewall 248 may act asa computer application firewall operating at the database storage 256from application attacks such as structure query language (SQL)injection, database rootkits, and unauthorized information disclosure.

In some implementations, the database firewall 248 may include a hostusing one or more forms of reverse proxy services to proxy trafficbefore passing it to a gateway router. The database firewall 248 mayinspect the contents of database traffic and block certain content ordatabase requests. The database firewall 248 may work on the SQLapplication level atop the TCP/IP stack, managing applications'connection to the database or SQL management interfaces as well asintercepting and enforcing packets traveling to or from a databasenetwork or application interface.

In some implementations, communication with the database storage 256 maybe conducted via the database switch 252. The multi-tenant databasestorage 256 may include more than one hardware and/or softwarecomponents for handling database queries. Accordingly, the databaseswitch 252 may direct database queries transmitted by other componentsof the on-demand database service environment (e.g., the pods 240 and244) to the correct components within the database storage 256.

In some implementations, the database storage 256 is an on-demanddatabase system shared by many different organizations. The on-demanddatabase system may employ a multi-tenant approach, a virtualizedapproach, or any other type of database approach. An on-demand databasesystem is discussed in greater detail with reference to FIGS. 1A and 1B.

FIG. 2B shows a system diagram further illustrating an example ofarchitectural components of an on-demand database service environmentaccording to some implementations. The pod 244 may be used to renderservices to a user of the on-demand database service environment 200. Insome implementations, each pod may include a variety of servers and/orother systems. The pod 244 includes one or more content batch servers264, content search servers 268, query servers 282, file force servers286, access control system (ACS) servers 280, batch servers 284, and appservers 288. Also, the pod 244 includes database instance 290, quickfile systems (QFS) 292, and indexers 294. In one or moreimplementations, some or all communication between the servers in thepod 244 may be transmitted via the switch 236.

In some implementations, the app servers 288 may include a hardwareand/or software framework dedicated to the execution of procedures(e.g., programs, routines, scripts) for supporting the construction ofapplications provided by the on-demand database service environment 200via the pod 244. In some implementations, the hardware and/or softwareframework of an app server 288 is configured to execute operations ofthe services described herein, including performance of the blocks ofmethods described with reference to FIGS. 7-10B. In alternativeimplementations, two or more app servers 288 may be included andcooperate to perform such methods, or one or more other serversdescribed herein can be configured to perform the disclosed methods.

The content batch servers 264 may handle requests internal to the pod.These requests may be long-running and/or not tied to a particularcustomer. For example, the content batch servers 264 may handle requestsrelated to log mining, cleanup work, and maintenance tasks.

The content search servers 268 may provide query and indexer functions.For example, the functions provided by the content search servers 268may allow users to search through content stored in the on-demanddatabase service environment.

The file force servers 286 may manage request for information stored inthe Fileforce storage 298. The Fileforce storage 298 may storeinformation such as documents, images, and basic large objects (BLOBs).By managing request for information using the file force servers 286,the image footprint on the database may be reduced.

The query servers 282 may be used to retrieve information from one ormore file systems. For example, the query system 282 may receiverequests for information from the app servers 288 and then transmitinformation queries to the NFS 296 located outside the pod.

The pod 244 may share a database instance 290 configured as amulti-tenant environment in which different organizations share accessto the same database. Additionally, services rendered by the pod 244 maycall upon various hardware and/or software resources. In someimplementations, the ACS servers 280 may control access to data,hardware resources, or software resources.

In some implementations, the batch servers 284 may process batch jobs,which are used to run tasks at specified times. Thus, the batch servers284 may transmit instructions to other servers, such as the app servers288, to trigger the batch jobs.

In some implementations, the QFS 292 may be an open source file systemavailable from Sun Microsystems® of Santa Clara, Calif. The QFS mayserve as a rapid-access file system for storing and accessinginformation available within the pod 244. The QFS 292 may support somevolume management capabilities, allowing many disks to be groupedtogether into a file system. File system metadata can be kept on aseparate set of disks, which may be useful for streaming applicationswhere long disk seeks cannot be tolerated. Thus, the QFS system maycommunicate with one or more content search servers 268 and/or indexers294 to identify, retrieve, move, and/or update data stored in thenetwork file systems 296 and/or other storage systems.

In some implementations, one or more query servers 282 may communicatewith the NFS 296 to retrieve and/or update information stored outside ofthe pod 244. The NFS 296 may allow servers located in the pod 244 toaccess information to access files over a network in a manner similar tohow local storage is accessed.

In some implementations, queries from the query servers 222 may betransmitted to be NFS 296 via the load balancer 228, which maydistribute resource requests over various resources available in theon-demand database service environment. The NFS 296 may also communicatewith the QFS 292 to update the information stored on the NFS 296 and/orto provide information to the QFS 292 for use by servers located withinthe pod 244.

In some implementations, the pod may include one or more databaseinstances 290. The database instance 290 may transmit information to theQFS 292. When information is transmitted to the QFS, it may be availablefor use by servers within the pod 244 without using an additionaldatabase call.

In some implementations, database information may be transmitted to theindexer 294. Indexer 294 may provide an index of information availablein the database 290 and/or QFS 292. The index information may beprovided to file force servers 286 and/or the QFS 292.

III. Tracking Updates to a Record Stored in a Database

As multiple users might be able to change the data of a record, it canbe useful for certain users to be notified when a record is updated.Also, even if a user does not have authority to change a record, theuser still might want to know when there is an update to the record. Forexample, a vendor may negotiate a new price with a salesperson ofcompany X, where the salesperson is a user associated with tenant Y. Aspart of creating a new invoice or for accounting purposes, thesalesperson can change the price saved in the database. It may beimportant for co-workers to know that the price has changed. Thesalesperson could send an email to certain people, but this is onerousand the salesperson might not email all of the people who need to knowor want to know. Accordingly, some implementations of the disclosedtechniques can inform others (e.g., co-workers) who want to know aboutan update to a record automatically.

FIG. 3 shows a flowchart of an example of a method 300 for trackingupdates to a record stored in a database system, performed in accordancewith some implementations. Method 300 (and other methods describedherein) may be implemented at least partially with multi-tenant databasesystem 16, e.g., by one or more processors configured to receive orretrieve information, process the information, store results, andtransmit the results. In other implementations, method 300 may beimplemented at least partially with a single tenant database system. Invarious implementations, blocks may be omitted, combined, or split intoadditional blocks for method 300, as well as for other methods describedherein.

In block 310, the database system receives a request to update a firstrecord. In one implementation, the request is received from a firstuser. For example, a user may be accessing a page associated with thefirst record, and may change a displayed field and hit save. In anotherimplementation, the database system can automatically create therequest. For instance, the database system can create the request inresponse to another event, e.g., a request to change a field could besent periodically at a particular date and/or time of day, or a changeto another field or object. The database system can obtain a new valuebased on other fields of a record and/or based on parameters in thesystem.

The request for the update of a field of a record is an example of anevent associated with the first record for which a feed tracked updatemay be created. In other implementations, the database system canidentify other events beside updates to fields of a record. For example,an event can be a submission of approval to change a field. Such anevent can also have an associated field to (e.g., a field showing astatus of whether a change has been submitted). Other examples of eventscan include creation of a record, deletion of a record, converting arecord from one type to another (e.g., converting a lead to anopportunity), closing a record (e.g., a case type record), andpotentially any other state change of a record—any of which couldinclude a field change associated with the state change. Any of theseevents update the record whether by changing a field of the record, astate of the record, or some other characteristic or property of therecord. In one implementation, a list of supported events for creating afeed tracked update can be maintained within the database system, e.g.,at a server or in a database.

In block 320, the database system writes new data to the first record.In one implementation, the new data may include a new value thatreplaces old data. For example, a field is updated with a new value. Inanother implementation, the new data can be a value for a field that didnot contain data before. In yet another implementation, the new datacould be a flag, e.g., for a status of the record, which can be storedas a field of the record.

In some implementations, a “field” can also include records, which arechild objects of the first record in a parent-child hierarchy. A fieldcan alternatively include a pointer to a child record. A child objectitself can include further fields. Thus, if a field of a child object isupdated with a new value, the parent also can be considered to have afield changed. In one example, a field could be a list of related childobjects, also called a related list.

In block 330, a feed tracked update is generated about the update to therecord. In one implementation, the feed tracked update is created inparts for assembling later into a display version. For example, evententries can be created and tracked in a first table, and changed fieldentries can be tracked in another table that is cross-referenced withthe first table. More specifics of such implementations are providedlater, e.g., with respect to FIG. 9A. In another implementation, thefeed tracked update is automatically generated by the database system.The feed tracked update can convey in words that the first record hasbeen updated and provide details about what was updated in the recordand who performed the update. In some implementations, a feed trackedupdate is generated for only certain types of event and/or updatesassociated with the first record.

In one implementation, a tenant (e.g., through an administrator) canconfigure the database system to create (enable) feed tracked updatesonly for certain types of records. For example, an administrator canspecify that records of designated types such as accounts andopportunities are enabled. When an update (or other event) is receivedfor the enabled record type, then a feed tracked update would begenerated. In another implementation, a tenant can also specify thefields of a record whose changes are to be tracked, and for which feedtracked updates are created. In one aspect, a maximum number of fieldscan be specified for tracking, and may include custom fields. In oneimplementation, the type of change can also be specified for example,that the value change of a field is to be larger than a threshold (e.g.,an absolute amount or a percentage change). In yet anotherimplementation, a tenant can specify which events are to cause ageneration of a feed tracked update. Also, in one implementation,individual users can specify configurations specific to them, which cancreate custom feeds as described in more detail below.

In one implementation, changes to fields of a child object are nottracked to create feed tracked updates for the parent record. In anotherimplementation, the changes to fields of a child object can be trackedto create feed tracked updates for the parent record. For example, achild object of the parent type can be specified for tracking, andcertain fields of the child object can be specified for tracking. Asanother example, if the child object is of a type specified fortracking, then a tracked change for the child object is propagated toparent records of the child object.

In block 340, the feed tracked update is added to a feed for the firstrecord. In one implementation, adding the feed tracked update to a feedcan include adding events to a table (which may be specific to a recordor be for all or a group of objects), where a display version of a feedtracked update can be generated dynamically and presented in a GUI as afeed item when a user requests a feed for the first record. In anotherimplementation, a display version of a feed tracked update can be addedwhen a record feed is stored and maintained for a record. As mentionedabove, a feed may be maintained for only certain records. In oneimplementation, the feed of a record can be stored in the databaseassociated with the record. For example, the feed can be stored as afield (e.g., as a child object) of the record. Such a field can store apointer to the text to be displayed for the feed tracked update.

In some implementations, only the current feed tracked update (or othercurrent feed item) may be kept or temporarily stored, e.g., in sometemporary memory structure. For example, a feed tracked update for onlya most recent change to any particular field is kept. In otherimplementations, many previous feed tracked update may be kept in thefeed. A time and/or date for each feed tracked update can be tracked.Herein, a feed of a record is also referred to as an entity feed, as arecord is an instance of a particular entity object of the database.

In block 350, followers of the first record can be identified. Afollower is a user following the first record, such as a subscriber tothe feed of the first record. In one implementation, when a userrequests a feed of a particular record, such an identification of block350 can be omitted. In another implementation where a record feed ispushed to a user (e.g., as part of a news feed), then the user can beidentified as a follower of the first record. Accordingly, this blockcan include the identification of records and other being followed by aparticular user.

In one implementation, the database system can store a list of thefollowers for a particular record. In various implementations, the listcan be stored with the first record or associated with the record usingan identifier (e.g., a pointer) to retrieve the list. For example, thelist can be stored in a field of the first record. In anotherimplementation, a list of the records that a user is following is used.In one implementation, the database system can have a routine that runsfor each user, where the routine polls the records in the list todetermine if a new feed tracked update has been added to a feed of therecord. In another implementation, the routine for the user can berunning at least partially on a user device, which contacts the databaseto perform the polling.

In block 360, in one implementation, the feed tracked update can bestored in a table, as described in greater detail below. When the useropens a feed, an appropriate query is sent to one or more tables toretrieve updates to records, also described in greater detail below. Insome implementations, the feed shows feed tracked updates in reversechronological order. In one implementation, the feed tracked update ispushed to the feed of a user, e.g., by a routine that determines thefollowers for the record from a list associated with the record. Inanother implementation, the feed tracked update is pulled to a feed,e.g., by a user device. This pulling may occur when a user requests thefeed, as occurs in block 370. Thus, these actions may occur in adifferent order. The creation of the feed for a pull may be a dynamiccreation that identifies records being followed by the requesting user,generates the display version of relevant feed tracked updates fromstored information (e.g., event and field change), and adds the feedtracked updates into the feed. A feed of feed tracked updates of recordsand other objects that a user is following is also generally referred toherein as a news feed, which can be a subset of a larger informationfeed in which other types of information updates appear, such as posts.

In yet another implementation, the feed tracked update could be sent asan email to the follower, instead of in a feed. In one implementation,email alerts for events can enable people to be emailed when certainevents occur. In another implementations, emails can be sent when thereare posts on a user profile and posts on entities to which the usersubscribes. In one implementation, a user can turn on/off email alertsfor all or some events. In an implementation, a user can specify whatkind of feed tracked updates to receive about a record that the user isfollowing. For example, a user can choose to only receive feed trackedupdates about certain fields of a record that the user is following, andpotentially about what kind of update was performed (e.g., a new valueinput into a specified field, or the creation of a new field).

In block 370, a follower can access his/her news feed to see the feedtracked update. In one implementation, the user has just one news feedfor all of the records that the user is following. In one aspect, a usercan access his/her feed by selecting a particular tab or other object ona page of an interface to the database system. Once selected the feedcan be provided as a list, e.g., with an identifier (e.g., a time) orincluding some or all of the text of the feed tracked update. In anotherimplementation, the user can specify how the feed tracked updates are tobe displayed and/or sent to the user. For example, a user can specify afont for the text, a location of where the feed can be selected anddisplayed, amount of text to be displayed, and other text or symbols tobe displayed (e.g., importance flags).

FIG. 4 shows a block diagram of an example of components of a databasesystem configuration 400 performing a method for tracking an update to arecord according to some implementations. Database system configuration400 can perform implementations of method 300, as well asimplementations of other methods described herein.

A first user 405 sends a request 1 to update record 425 in databasesystem 416. Although an update request is described, other events thatare being tracked are equally applicable. In various implementations,the request 1 can be sent via a user interface (e.g., 30 of FIG. 1B) oran application program interface (e.g., API 32). An I/O port 420 canaccommodate the signals of request 1 via any input interface, and sendthe signals to one or more processors 417. The processor 417 can analyzethe request and determine operations to be performed. Herein, anyreference to a processor 417 can refer to a specific processor or anyset of processors in database system 416, which can be collectivelyreferred to as processor 417.

Processor 417 can determine an identifier for record 425, and sendcommands with the new data 2 of the request to record database 412 toupdate record 425. In one implementation, record database 412 is wheretenant storage space 112 of FIG. 1B is located. The request 1 and newdata commands 2 can be encapsulated in a single write transaction sentto record database 412. In one implementation, multiple changes torecords in the database can be made in a single write transaction.

Processor 417 can also analyze request 1 to determine whether a feedtracked update is to be created, which at this point may includedetermining whether the event (e.g., a change to a particular field) isto be tracked. This determination can be based on an interaction (i.e.,an exchange of data) with record database 412 and/or other databases, orbased on information stored locally (e.g., in cache or RAM) at processor417. In one implementation, a list of record types that are beingtracked can be stored. The list may be different for each tenant, e.g.,as each tenant may configure the database system to its ownspecifications. Thus, if the record 425 is of a type not being tracked,then the determination of whether to create a feed tracked update canstop there.

The same list or a second list (which can be stored in a same locationor a different location) can also include the field and/or events thatare tracked for the record types in the first list. This list can besearched to determine if the event is being tracked. A list may alsocontain information having the granularity of listing specific recordsthat are the be tracked (e.g., if a tenant can specify the particularrecords to be tracked, as opposed to just type).

As an example, processor 417 may obtain an identifier associated withrecord 425 (e.g., obtained from request 1 or database 412), potentiallyalong with a tenant identifier, and cross-reference the identifier witha list of records for which feed tracked updates are to be created.Specifically, the record identifier can be used to determine the recordtype and a list of tracked types can be searched for a match. Thespecific record may also be checked if such individual record trackingwas enabled. The name of the field to be changed can also be used tosearch a list of tracking-enable fields. Other criteria besides fieldand events can be used to determine whether a feed tracked update iscreated, e.g., type of change in the field. If a feed tracked update isto be generated, processor 417 can then generate the feed trackedupdate.

In some implementations, a feed tracked update is created dynamicallywhen a feed (e.g., the entity feed of record 425) is requested. Thus, inone implementation, a feed tracked update can be created when a userrequest the entity feed for record 425. In this implementation, the feedtracked update may be created (e.g., assembled), including re-created,each time the entity feed is to be displayed to any user. In oneimplementation, one or more event history tables can keep track ofprevious events so that the feed tracked update can be re-created.

In another implementation, a feed tracked update can be created at thetime the event occurs, and the feed tracked update can be added to alist of feed items. The list of feed items may be specific to record425, or may be an aggregate of feed items including feed items for manyrecords. Such an aggregate list can include a record identifier so thatthe feed items for the entity feed of record 425 can be easilyretrieved. For example, after the feed items tracked update has beengenerated, processor 417 can add the new feed tracked update 3 to a feedof record 425. As mentioned above, in one implementation, the feed canbe stored in a field (e.g., as a child object) of record 425. In anotherimplementation, the feed can be stored in another location or in anotherdatabase, but with a link (e.g., a connecting identifier) to record 425.The feed can be organized in various ways, e.g., as a linked list, anarray, or other data structure.

A second user 430 can access the new feed tracked update 3 in variousways. In one implementation, second user 430 can send a request 4 forthe record feed. For example, second user 430 can access a home page(detail page) of the record 425 (e.g., with a query or by browsing), andthe feed can be obtained through a tab, button, or other activationobject on the page. The feed can be displayed on the screen ordownloaded.

In another implementation, processor 417 can add the new feed trackedupdate 5 to a feed (e.g., a news feed) of a user that is followingrecord 425. In one implementation, processor 417 can determine each ofthe followers of record 425 by accessing a list of the users that havebeen registered as followers. This determination can be done for eachnew event (e.g., update 1). In another implementation, processor 417 canpoll (e.g., with a query) the records that second user 430 is followingto determine when new feed tracked updates (or other feed items) areavailable. Processor 417 can use a follower profile 435 of second user430 that can contain a list of the records that the second user 430 isfollowing. Such a list can be contained in other parts of the databaseas well. Second user 430 can then send a request 6 to his/her profile435 to obtain a feed, which contains the new feed tracked update. Theuser's profile 435 can be stored in a profile database 414, which can bethe same or different than database 412.

In some implementations, a user can define a news feed to include newfeed tracked updates from various records, which may be limited to amaximum number. In one implementation, each user has one news feed. Inanother implementation, the follower profile 435 can include thespecifications of each of the records to be followed (with the criteriafor what feed tracked updates are to be provided and how they aredisplayed), as well as the feed.

Some implementations can provide various types of record (entity) feeds.Entity Feeds can exist for record types like account, opportunity, caseand contact. An entity feed can tell a user about the actions thatpeople have taken on that particular record or on one its relatedrecords. The entity feed can include who made the action, which fieldwas changed, and the old and new values. In one implementation, entityfeeds can exist on all supported records as a list that is linked to thespecific record. For example, a feed could be stored in a field thatallows lists (e.g., linked lists) or as a child object.

IV. Tracking Actions of a User

In addition to knowing about events associated with a particular record,it can be helpful for a user to know what a particular user is doing. Inparticular, it might be nice to know what the user is doing without theuser having to generate the feed tracked update (e.g., a user submittinga synopsis of what the user has done). Accordingly, implementations canautomatically track actions of a user that trigger events, and feedtracked updates can be generated for certain events.

FIG. 5 shows a flowchart of an example of a method 500 for trackingactions of a user of a database system, performed in accordance withsome implementations. Method 500 may be performed in addition to method300. The operations of method 300, including order of blocks, can beperformed in conjunction with method 500 and other methods describedherein. Thus, a feed can be composed of changes to a record and actionsof users.

In block 510, a database system (e.g., 16 of FIGS. 1A and 1B) identifiesan action of a first user. In one implementation, the action triggers anevent, and the event is identified. For example, the action of a userrequesting an update to a record can be identified, where the event isreceiving a request or is the resulting update of a record. The actionmay thus be defined by the resulting event. In another implementation,only certain types of actions (events) are identified. Which actions areidentified can be set as a default or can be configurable by a tenant oreven configurable at a user level. In this way, processing effort can bereduced since only some actions are identified.

In block 520, it is determined whether the event qualifies for a feedtracked update. In one implementation, a predefined list of events(e.g., as mentioned herein) can be created so that only certain actionsare identified. In one implementation, an administrator (or other user)of a tenant can specify the type of actions (events) for which a feedtracked update is to be generated. This block may also be performed formethod 300.

In block 530, a feed tracked update is generated about the action. In anexample where the action is an update of a record, the feed trackedupdate can be similar or the same as the feed tracked update created forthe record. The description can be altered though to focus on the useras opposed to the record. For example, “John D. has closed a newopportunity for account XYZ” as opposed to “an opportunity has beenclosed for account XYZ.”

In block 540, the feed tracked update is added to a profile feed of thefirst user when, e.g., the user clicks on a tab on to open a page in abrowser program displaying the feed. In one implementation, a feed for aparticular user can be accessed on a page of the user's profile, in asimilar manner as a record feed can be accessed on a detail page of therecord. In another implementation, the first user may not have a profilefeed and the feed tracked update may just be stored temporarily beforeproceeding. A profile feed of a user can be stored associated with theuser's profile. This profile feed can be added to a news feed of anotheruser.

In block 550, followers of the first user are identified. In oneimplementation, a user can specify which type of actions other users canfollow. Similarly, in one implementation, a follower can select whatactions by a user the follower wants to follow. In an implementationwhere different followers follow different types of actions, which usersare followers of that user and the particular action can be identified,e.g., using various lists that track what actions and criteria are beingfollowed by a particular user. In various implementations, the followersof the first user can be identified in a similar manner as followers ofa record, as described above for block 350.

In block 560, the feed tracked update is added to a news feed of eachfollower of the first user when, e.g., the follower clicks on a tab toopen a page displaying the news feed. The feed tracked update can beadded in a similar manner as the feed items for a record feed. The newsfeed can contain feed tracked updates both about users and records. Inanother implementation, a user can specify what kind of feed trackedupdates to receive about a user that the user is following. For example,a user could specify feed tracked updates with particular keywords, ofcertain types of records, of records owned or created by certain users,particular fields, and other criteria as mentioned herein.

In block 570, a follower accesses the news feed and sees the feedtracked update. In one implementation, the user has just one news feedfor all of the records that the user is following. In anotherimplementation, a user can access his/her own feed (i.e., feed abouthis/her own actions) by selecting a particular tab or other object on apage of an interface to the database system. Thus, a feed can includefeed tracked updates about what other users are doing in the databasesystem. When a user becomes aware of a relevant action of another user,the user can contact the co-worker, thereby fostering teamwork.

V. Generation of a Feed Tracked Update

As described above, some implementations can generate text describingevents (e.g., updates) that have occurred for a record and actions by auser that trigger an event. A database system can be configured togenerate the feed tracked updates for various events in various ways.

In one implementation, the feed tracked update is a grammaticalsentence, thereby being easily understandable by a person. In anotherimplementation, the feed tracked update provides detailed informationabout the update. In various examples, an old value and new value for afield may be included in the feed tracked update, an action for theupdate may be provided (e.g., submitted for approval), and the names ofparticular users that are responsible for replying or acting on the feedtracked update may be also provided. The feed tracked update can alsohave a level of importance based on setting chosen by the administrator,a particular user requesting an update, or by a following user who is toreceive the feed tracked update, which fields is updated, a percentageof the change in a field, the type of event, or any combination of thesefactors.

The system may have a set of heuristics for creating a feed trackedupdate from the event (e.g., a request to update). For example, thesubject may be the user, the record, or a field being added or changed.The verb can be based on the action requested by the user, which can beselected from a list of verbs (which may be provided as defaults orinput by an administrator of a tenant). In one implementation, feedtracked updates can be generic containers with formatting restrictions,

As an example of a feed tracked update for a creation of a new record,“Mark Abramowitz created a new Opportunity for IBM—20,000 laptops withAmount as $3.5M and Sam Palmisano as Decision Maker.” This event can beposted to the profile feed for Mark Abramowitz and the entity feed forrecord of Opportunity for IBM—20,000 laptops. The pattern can be givenby (AgentFullName) created a new (ObjectName)(RecordName) with[(FieldName) as (FieldValue) [,/and]]*[[added/changed/removed](RelatedListRecordName) [as/to/as] (RelatedListRecordValue)[./and]]*.Similar patterns can be formed for a changed field (standard or custom)and an added child record to a related list.

VI. Tracking Commentary from or about a User

Some implementations can also have a user submit text, instead of thedatabase system generating a feed tracked update. As the text issubmitted as part or all of a message by a user, the text can beconveyed. In one implementation, the messages can be used to ask aquestion about a particular record, and users following the record canprovide comments and responses.

FIG. 6 shows a flowchart of an example of a method 600 for creating anews feed from messages created by a user about a record or anotheruser, performed in accordance with some implementation. In oneimplementation, method 600 can be combined with methods 300 and 500. Inone aspect, a message can be associated with the first user when thefirst user creates the message (e.g., a post or comment about a recordor another user). In another aspect, a message can be associated withthe first user when the message is about the first user (e.g., posted byanother user on the first user's profile feed).

In block 610, the database system receives a message (e.g., a post orstatus update) associated with a first user. The message (e.g., a postor status update) can contain text and/or multimedia content submittedby another user or by the first user. In one implementation, a post isfor a section of the first user's profile page where any user can add apost, and where multiple posts can exist. Thus a post can appear on thefirst user's profile page and can be viewed when the first user'sprofile is visited. For a message about a record, the post can appear ona detail page of a record. Note the message can appear in other feeds aswell. In another implementation, a status update about the first usercan only be added by the first user. In one implementation, a user canonly have one status message.

In block 620, the message is added to a table, as described in greaterdetail below. When the feed is opened, a query filters on or more tablesto identify the first user, identify other persons that the user isfollowing, and retrieve the message. Messages and record updates arepresented in a combined list as the feed. In this way, in oneimplementation, the message can be added to a profile feed of the firstuser, which is associated (e.g., as a related list) with the firstuser's profile. In one implementation, the posts are listedindefinitely. In another implementation, only the most recent posts(e.g., last 50) are kept in the profile feed. Such implementations canalso be employed with feed tracked updates. In yet anotherimplementation, the message can be added to a profile of the user addingthe message.

In block 630, the database system identifies followers of the firstuser. In one implementation, the database system can identify thefollowers as described above for method 500. In various implementations,a follower can select to follow a feed about the actions of the firstuser, messages about the first user, or both (potentially in a samefeed).

In block 640, the message is added to a news feed of each follower. Inone implementation, the message is only added to a news feed of aparticular follower if the message matches some criteria, e.g., themessage includes a particular keyboard or other criteria. In anotherimplementation, a message can be deleted by the user who created themessage. In one implementation, once deleted by the author, the messageis deleted from all feeds to which the message had been added.

In block 650, the follower accesses a news feed and sees the message.For example, the follower can access a news feed on the follower's ownprofile page. As another example, the follower can have a news feed sentto his/her own desktop without having to first go to a home page.

In block 660, the database system receives a comment about the message.The database system can add the comment to a feed of the same firstuser, much as the original message was added. In one implementation, thecomment can also be added to a feed of a second user who added thecomment. In one implementation, users can also reply to the comment. Inanother implementation, users can add comments to a feed tracked update,and further comments can be associated with the feed tracked update. Inyet another implementation, making a comment or message is not an actionto which a feed tracked update is created. Thus, the message may be theonly feed item created from such an action.

In one implementation, if a feed tracked update or post is deleted, itscorresponding comments are deleted as well. In another implementation,new comments on a feed tracked update or post do not update the feedtracked update timestamp. Also, the feed tracked update or post cancontinue to be shown in a feed (profile feed, record feed, or news feed)if it has had a comment within a specified timeframe (e.g., within thelast week). Otherwise, the feed tracked update or post can be removed inan implementation.

In some implementations, all or most feed tracked updates can becommented on. In other implementations, feed tracked updates for certainrecords (e.g., cases or ideas) are not commentable. In variousimplementations, comments can be made for any one or more records ofopportunities, accounts, contacts, leads, and custom objects.

In block 670, the comment is added to a news feed of each follower. Inone implementation, a user can make the comment within the user's newsfeed. Such a comment can propagate to the appropriate profile feed orrecord feed, and then to the news feeds of the following users. Thus,feeds can include what people are saying, as well as what they aredoing.

In some implementations, users can rate feed tracked updates or messages(including comments). A user can choose to prioritize a display of afeed so that higher rated feed items show up higher on a display. Forexample, in an implementation where comments are answers to a specificquestion, users can rate the different status posts so that a bestanswer can be identified. As another example, users are able to quicklyidentify feed items that are most important as those feed items can bedisplayed at a top of a list. The order of the feed items can be basedon an importance level (which can be determined by the database systemusing various factors, some of which are mentioned herein) and based ona rating from users. In one implementation, the rating is on scale thatincludes at least 3 values. In another implementation, the rating isbased on a binary scale.

Besides a profile for a user, a group can also be created. In variousimplementations, the group can be created based on certain attributesthat are common to the users, can be created by inviting users, and/orcan be created by receiving requests to join from a user. In oneimplementation, a group feed can be created, with messages being addedto the group feed when someone submits a message to the group as a wholethrough a suitable user interface. For example, a group page may have agroup feed or a section within the feed for posts, and a user can submita post through a publisher component in the user interface by clickingon a “Share” or similar button. In another implementation, a message canbe added to a group feed when the message is submitted about any one ofthe members. Also, a group feed can include feed tracked updates aboutactions of the group as a whole (e.g., when an administrator changesdata in a group profile or a record owned by the group), or aboutactions of an individual member.

VII. Multi-Action Based Collaborative Filtering

FIG. 7 shows a flowchart of an example of a computer implemented method700 for identifying a topic for recommending an event for a user,performed in accordance with some implementations.

In FIG. 7, at block 710, a server receives information identifying aplurality of events. Each event may include an action and an item, andeach event is associated with a user. In some implementations, theassociated user of an event may be a user that performed the event.

In some implementations, an event may be any action that a user of, e.g.a social networking system or an on-demand service environment, mayperform as part of his workflow. In the example of a Chatter® user, anevent may be any action that the user performs as he navigates theChatter® user interface and social networking system, such as clicking aline, following a record, joining a group, performing a search, updatingan object record, and the like. Other examples, of events include:following a user, conversing with a user, accessing a file, acting on arecord, acting on a customer relationship management (CRM) object,accessing an image, accessing a video, accessing audio data,communicating with a group or with a user, buying an item, selling anitem, and following a topic.

An event may include an action having an action type and an item. In theexample of user 1 joining group A, the action type may be “joining” andthe item may be “group A,” and the user associated with the vent may be“user 1.” Two actions, such as “joining group A” and joining group B,”may be different actions but have the same action type. Other examplesof actions types include: following, clicking, joining, accessing,downloading, viewing, searching, communicating, buying, selling,recommending, rating, opening, closing, deleting, creating, andupdating. An item may be one of: a record, a link, an image, a video, adocument, a user, a group, a file, a CRM object, a topic and an article.

In, for example, a CRM environment, many users may be performing manydifferent events at different times. In some implementations, each eventmay be associated with the time at which the event was performed by theuser, and the time of the event may be stored in a database along withthe event information.

In some implementations, the input plurality of events may consist ofthe events performed by all of the users of the system. In otherimplementations, the input plurality of events may include the eventsperformed by a subset of users of the system. In some cases, the actionsof users of the same role or type may be more relevant in recommendingevents to a user. In other implementations, the input plurality ofevents may consist of events of a particular one or more event types.

In FIG. 7, a block 720, the server performing method 700 stores data ofthe plurality of events in one or more data tables stored on one or morestorage media. The first one or more data tables include an actionfield, an item field, and a user field. In some implementations, as thevarious user of, for example, a CRM environment, perform variousactions, such as liking a page or joining a group, these events may allbe stored in databases of the CRM environment to be used to providerecommendations to subsequent users.

FIG. 10A shows an example of a database table 1000 identifying eventsperformed by users of the system, according to some implementations. Thefirst event 1002 is user 1 following user 2. The second event 1012 isuser 2 viewing link 1. The third event is user 2 joining group A. Thetables includes a user field 1004, action field 1014, and item field1024. In some implementations, a timestamp field may be included in thetable. The database table may provide a record of every event performedby any user of the system, and this data may be used as input into thecollaborative filtering methods (such as an item-to-item collaborativefiltering method) to recommend events to users. The many different typesof events with different actions stored in this database table mayprovide better event recommendations than a table storing events havingonly one action type, such as “user 1 buys book A”, “user 2 buys bookB,” and “user 1 buys book B.”

In FIG. 7, at block 730, the server performing method 700 analyzes thedata of the one or more data tables to generate one or more pairs. Eachpair includes a set of events and a target event. In someimplementations, a set of events may be a sequence of events performedin a particular order by a single user. For example, there may be one ormore users who perform the following workflow: clicking a link,following user A, and then joining group B. These three events in thisparticular order may be stored as a set of events.

In some implementations, the set of events may be one or more eventsperformed within a designated time interval by a single user. In theseimplementations, a set of events may be stored when the one or moreevents are performed within a designated interval of time, like fiveminutes or one hour. In other implementations, the condition may be thatthe one or more events occurred within the last 24 hours.

In some implementations, one of the generated pairs includes a first setof events and a first target event, wherein the first set of eventsincludes an event having a first action having a first action type, andthe first target event has a second action having a second action type.For example, the first set of events may be “follow user A,” and thetarget event is “join group C.” In this example, the action type of anaction in the first set of events is “following” and the action type ofthe target event is “joining.” As another example, the first set ofevents may be “join group A, click on link B”, and the target event maybe “join group C.” Again, the set of events includes tow action types,“joining” and “clicking,” and the target event has the action type of“joining,” where “clicking” and “joining” are different.

In some implementations, all of the sets of events that are stored havethe same length. The length of a set may be the number of events in theset. For example, a set of events consisting of joining group A, joininggroup B, and following user 1 would have a length of three. In theseimplementations, the stored sets of events may all include, for example,three events. In other implementations, the stored sets of events mayhave a maximum length. In the case where the maximum length is three,the servers may store sets of events having lengths of one, two, orthree.

In some implementations, the length of all of the sets of events may bemore than one, wherein one of the sets of events includes a first eventhaving a first action of a first action type and a second event having asecond action of a second action type. The first and second action typesmay be different. As an example, a set of events may have a length ofthree and consist of “joining group A, clicking on link B, and followinguser C,” wherein action types of the three events are all different.Because some actions that are different may be related, e.g. a user whofollows topics that another user follows may be more likely to join agroup that the other user has joined, allowing for multiple actionswithin a set of events makes it possible to provide better eventrecommendations to a user.

In some implementations, the target event is an event, having an actionand an item, and within the pair, the target event may be a potentialrecommended event for a user who has performed the set of events of thepair. Whether the target event will be recommended to a user who hasperformed the set of events may depend on a similarity score generatedby a collaborative filtering method on the pair, which is discussedbelow.

In some implementations, the set of analyzing the data of the one ormore data tables to generate one or more pairs comprises utilizing acollaborative filtering method to generate a collaborative filter tableas output having the one or more pairs recorded therein based on theanalysis. Basic collaborative filtering methods will be understood by aperson skilled in the art. As is described herein, a collaborativefiltering method relates all pairs of items in a system by how manytimes the two items have been accessed by the same user. For example,When a user accesses item 1, the method may predict that such a userwill also access item 2 if the two items are evaluated to be highlyrelated based on the behavior of other users within the system. That isto say, based on other users within the system having often accessedboth item 1 and item 2 together, the collaborative filtering method maythen make a determination that these two exemplary items exhibit highcorrelation, and thus, the user in question may be “predicted” (e.g., isconsidered “more likely”) to access item 2 after being observed to haveaccessed item 1. In the disclosed implementations, “item 1” may be a setof events, and “item 2” may be a target event. Some of the disclosedimplementations generate the one or more pairs, which providemulti-action vectors based on the sets of events and target eventsstored in the server databases to serve as input into collaborativefiltering methods to generate similarity scores for the one or morepairs.

In FIG. 7, a block 740, the server performing method 700 calculates asimilarity score for each of the one or more pairs. In someimplementations, the similarity score is generated by the collaborativefiltering methods used on the one or more pairs generated by the server.The similarity score may be a percentage score indicating the similaritybetween the set of events and the target event.

In some implementations, the similarity score is based in part on howfrequently any user that has performed the set of events of the pair hasalso performed the target event of the pair. For example, the set ofevents may the following workflow: viewing article A, following user B,and joining group 1. And the target event may be joining group 2. Thesimilarity score for this pair may indicate the likelihood that a userwho performs the workflow—viewing article A, following user B, andjoining group 1—will also join group 2. Similarity scores for variouspairs including sets of events that a user has performed and includingvarious target events may be compared to determine which target eventshould be recommended to the user.

In some implementations, the similarity scores are normalized for thefrequency that the set of events is performed by any user. For example,a particular workflow may be relatively common among all users of asystem simply because the events of the workflow are regularly performedby all users of the system. This may result in certain pairs includingthis workflow to have higher similarity scores because of their higheroccurrence. In these implementations, the similarity scores may benormalized using the frequency with which the set of events is performedby users of the system.

In some implementations, the similarity score is a cosine-basedsimilarity score based on vectors generated from the one or more pairs.

In FIG. 7, a block 750, the server performing method 700 stores each ofthe one or more pairs and the respective similarity score in a secondone or more data tables. The second one or more data tables may includean event set field, a target event field, and a similarity score field.

In some implementations, the collaborative filtering method may beexecuted periodically in a background process to update thecollaborative filter table as new event are added to the input eventtables.

FIG. 10B shows an example of a database table 1050 identifyingsimilarity scores for a set of events and a target event, according tosome implementations. The table includes a set field 1054, a targetevent field 1064, and a collaborative filtering (“CF”) similarity scorepercentage field 1074. While these fields are presented as singlecolumns in a single table, other implementations may provide this dataas multiple columns in multiple tables in multiple databases as well. Inthis particular implementation, the event sets have varying lengths. Inother implementations, the event sets may all have the same length. Thetable includes a first pair 1052, which demonstrates a 56% CF similarityscore for the set—follow user 2, join group A—and the target event—joingroup B. The second pair 1062 demonstrates a 9% CF similarity score forthe set—follow user 2, join group A—and the target event—join group C.The third pair 1072 demonstrates a 23% CF similarity score for theset—view link3, join group A, join group C—and the target event—followuser3. In this example, the first pair 1052 and the second pair 1062have the same set of events, but different target events and differentsimilarity scores. The table demonstrates that users who perform thecommon set of events are more likely to join group B than to join groupC. This determination may be used to recommend group B over recommendinggroup C to a user who performs the same set of events.

FIG. 8 shows a flowchart of an example of a computer implemented method800 for recommending an event to a user, performed in accordance withsome implementations.

At block 810 of FIG. 8, a server performing method 800 receives as inputa plurality of events from a plurality of users, as generally describedabove at block 710 of FIG. 7.

At block 820 of FIG. 8, the server performing method 800 stores data ofthe plurality of events in one or more data tables stored on one or moreservers. The first one or more data tables include an actions field, anitem field, and a user field, as generally described above at block 720of FIG. 7.

At block 830 of FIG. 8, the server performing method 800 analyzes thedata of the one or more data tables to generate one or more pairs, asgenerally described above at block 730 of FIG. 7.

At block 840 of FIG. 8, the server performing method 800 calculates asimilarity score for each of the one or more pairs, a generallydescribed above at block 740 of FIG. 7.

At block 850 of FIG. 8, the server performing method 800 stores each ofthe one or more pairs and the associated similarity score in a secondone or more data table of the one or more servers. The second one ormore data tables may include an event set field, a target event field,and a similarity score field, as generally described above at block 750of FIG. 7.

At block 860 of FIG. 8, the server performing method 800 receives one ormore events from a computing device, the one or more events associatedby a first user. In some implementations, the one or more events areperformed by the first user.

The one or more events may be a series of events performed in aparticular order within a designated time interval. For example, theuser may be a sales agent who has answered a phone call, opened up a newcase, and entered some notes regarding the case. As another example, theuser may be a Chatter® user who has followed a user and joined a group.The one or more events may be workflow or set of events performed by thefirst user.

At block 870 of FIG. 8, the server performing method 800 identifies,based on the stored one or more pairs, the stored similarity scores, andthe received one or more events, a first event to be recommended to thefirst user.

In some implementations, the server may identify entries in thecollaborative filter output table, e.g., the table of FIG. 10B, thatinclude the set of events that the first user performed. Among that setof entries, the CF similarity scores may be compared to identify theentry with the highest CF similarity score, and the target event of thatentry may be the event to be recommended to the first user. In anotherimplementation, three (or any number of) target events having thehighest CF similarity scores may be identified to be recommended to thefirst user.

At block 880 of FIG. 8, the server performing method 800 transmits datato the computing device, as described below in the flowcharts of FIGS.9A, 9B, and 9C.

FIGS. 9A, 9B, and 9C show flowcharts of examples of a computerimplemented method 980 for transmitting data to a computing device fordisplay, performed in accordance with some implementations.

At block 982 of FIG. 9A, the server performing method 980 transmits tothe computing device data for displaying in a user interface of thecomputing device a recommendation that the first user perform theidentified second event. In some implementations, the recommendation mayappear in a sidebar of the user interface. In some implementations, arecommendation to join group B may include a message such as “Otherusers who have joined group A have also joined group B.” In the exampleof the sales agent who has received a phone call, opened a new case, andentered some notes regarding the issue, the recommendation may be tosearch a knowledge for articles pertaining to the issue. Such arecommendation may appear as message such as “Would you like to searchthe knowledge database for this issue?”

At block 984 of FIG. 9B, the server performing method 980 transmits tothe computing device data for rearranging displayed data or userinterface components in a user interface of the computing device todisplay the identified second event in a more prominent locations of theuser interface. In some implementations, one or more buttons or tabscorresponding to various events may be positioned in the user interfacein various locations. When a recommended event is identified, the buttonor tab may be displayed in a different position for the user to see.

At block 986 of FIG. 9C, the server performing method 980 transmits tothe computing device data for repositioning a displayed link in a listof links to the top of the list of links. The displayed link mayrepresent the identified second event, and the more prominent locationof the user interface may be the top of the list of links. In someimplementations, a list of links may be displayed in a sidebar,presenting the user with multiple options of events to perform. When atarget event is identified for the user based on the set of events thathe has performed, the list of links may be rearranged such that thelinks corresponding to the more highly recommended events are presentedat the top of the list. In this way, the user may be presented with themost relevant information in the user interface.

The specific details of the specific aspects of implementationsdisclosed herein may be combined in any suitable manner withoutdeparting from the spirit and scope of the disclosed implementations.However, other implementations may be directed to specificimplementations relating to each individual aspect, or specificcombinations of these individual aspects.

While the disclosed examples are often described herein with referenceto an implementation in which an on-demand database service environmentis implemented in a system having an application server providing afront end for an on-demand database service capable of supportingmultiple tenants, the present implementations are not limited tomulti-tenant databases nor deployment on application servers.Implementations may be practiced using other database architectures,i.e., ORACLE®, DB2® by IBM and the like without departing from the scopeof the implementations claimed.

It should be understood that some of the disclosed implementations canbe embodied in the form of control logic using hardware and/or usingcomputer software in a modular or integrated manner. Other ways and/ormethods are possible using hardware and a combination of hardware andsoftware.

Any of the software components or functions described in thisapplication may be implemented as software code to be executed by aprocessor using any suitable computer language such as, for example,Java, C++ or Perl using, for example, conventional or object-orientedtechniques. The software code may be stored as a series of instructionsor commands on a computer-readable medium for storage and/ortransmission, suitable media include random access memory (RAM), a readonly memory (ROM), a magnetic medium such as a hard-drive or a floppydisk, or an optical medium such as a compact disk (CD) or DVD (digitalversatile disk), flash memory, and the like. The computer-readablemedium may be any combination of such storage or transmission devices.Computer-readable media encoded with the software/program code may bepackaged with a compatible device or provided separately from otherdevices (e.g., via Internet download). Any such computer-readable mediummay reside on or within a single computing device or an entire computersystem, and may be among other computer-readable media within a systemor network. A computer system, or other computing device, may include amonitor, printer, or other suitable display for providing any of theresults mentioned herein to a user.

While various implementations have been described herein, it should beunderstood that they have been presented by way of example only, and notlimitation. Thus, the breadth and scope of the present applicationshould not be limited by any of the implementations described herein,but should be defined only in accordance with the following andlater-submitted claims and their equivalents.

What is claimed is:
 1. A system for identifying an event to a user, thesystem comprising: a database system implemented using a server systemincluding one or more hardware processors, the one or more hardwareprocessors configured to: monitor events performed in the databasesystem by users; identify a pair of the events including a first eventand an associated second target event, the first event including a firstaction with a first action type associated with a first item and thesecond target event including a second action with a second action typeassociated with a second item, the first action type being differentfrom the second action type; determine a similarity score for the pairof events based on at least a frequency of the users performing thefirst event in association with performing the second target event;monitor actions for an identified user; and notify the identified userof the second target event based on a similarity of the actions with thefirst event and the similarity score for the pair of events.
 2. Thesystem of claim 1, the server system further configured to usecollaborative filtering to determine the similarity score.
 3. The systemof claim 1, the server system further configured to: determine an actionidentifier, an item identifier, and a user identifier for each of theevents; store the action identifier in an action field of a databasetable; store the item identifier in an item field of the database table;and store the user identifier in a user field of the database table. 4.The system of claim 3, the server system further configured to analyzethe action identifier, item identifier, and user identifier for each ofthe events in the database table to generate the pair of events.
 5. Thesystem of claim 1, the server system further configured to store thepair of events and the similarity score in a database table, wherein thedatabase table includes a first event field storing the first event, asecond target event field storing the second target event, and asimilarity score field storing the similarity score.
 6. The system ofclaim 1, the server system further configured to transmit, to acomputing device associated with the identified user for displaying on auser interface, a message indicating other users performing the firstevent have also performed the second tartlet event.
 7. The system ofclaim 1, the server system further configured to transmit, to acomputing device associated with the identified user for displaying on auser interface, a recommendation that the identified user perform thesecond target event.
 8. The system of claim 1, the server system furtherconfigured to transmit, to a computing device associated with theidentified user, instructions for arranging or rearranging displayeddata on a user interface to highlight the second target event.
 9. Thesystem of claim 1, wherein the first action views the first item and thesecond action purchases the second item.
 10. A method for identifyingevents in a database system, comprising: monitoring, by one or morehardware processors in the database system, events performed by users;identifying, by the database system, a pair of the events including afirst event and a second event, the first event including a first actionassociated with a first item and the second event including a secondaction type associated with a second item; generating, by the databasesystem, a similarity score for the pair of events based at least on afrequency of the users performing the first event in association withperforming the second target event; monitoring, by the database system,user actions performed by an identified user; and notifying, by thedatabase system, the identified user of the second event based on acomparison of the user actions with the first event and the similarityscore between the first event and the second event.
 11. The method ofclaim 10, further comprising using, by the database system,collaborative filtering for generating the similarity score.
 12. Themethod of claim 10, further comprising sending, by the database system,a message to a computing system associated with the identified user fordisplaying on a user interface, the message recommending the second itemin the second event.
 13. The method of claim 10, further comprising:determining an action identifier, an item identifier, and a useridentifier for each of the events; storing the action identifier in anaction field of a database table; storing the item identifier in an itemfield of the database table; storing the user identifier in a user fieldof the database table; and identifying the pair of the events based onthe action identifier, item identifier, and user identifier for each ofthe events stored in the database table.
 14. The method of claim 10,further comprising: identifying multiple pairs of the events based on afrequency of the users performing each of the events in each of themultiple pairs of the events; generating similarity scores for each ofthe multiple pairs of the events; selecting at least one of the multiplepairs of events based on a comparison of the user actions with the firstevent in each of the multiple pairs of events and the similarity scoresfor the multiple pairs of events; and notifying the identified user ofthe second event in the selected multiple pairs of the events.
 15. Themethod of claim 10, further comprising sending a message to a computingsystem associated with the identified user, the message indicating otherusers performing the first event have also performed the second event.16. The method of claim 10, further comprising transmitting, to acomputing device associated with the identified user, instructions forarranging or rearranging displayed data and/or user interface componentson a user interface to highlight the second event.
 17. The method ofclaim 10, wherein the first action views the first item and the secondaction purchases the second item.
 18. A computer program productcomprising program code to be executed by at least one processor whenretrieved from a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium foridentifying events, the program code comprising instructions configuredto cause the processor to: monitor events occurring in a computersystem, each of the events including an action and an item; identifyevent pairs each including a set of events and an associated targetevent; derive collaborative filtering similarities for the event pairsbased on a frequency of performing the set of events in association withperforming the associated target event; identify actions associated witha first user; identify at least one of the set of events similar to theuser actions; and transmit a recommendation to a computing deviceassociated with the first user that includes the target event associatedwith the identified at least one set of events.
 19. The computer programproduct of claim 18, the instructions further configured to cause theprocessor to indicate in the recommendation that other users performingthe identified set of events have also performed the associated targetevent.
 20. The computer program product of claim 18, wherein a firstaction type for at least some of the set of events are different from asecond action type for the associated target event.